The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1887-11-26
THE TYPICAL FRENCH WOMAN.
Max O'ReT1 Writes Racily CONCERNING
Her Home Iife-Peasantry..


Her Home Life-Peasantry..
The French woman has a genius for
cookery, and is thoroughly awake to the
fact that it is good policy in married life
to see that her husband dimes well. The
politics of matrimony is a science inborn
in our women. Let French woman be
rich or poor-the mistress of a mansion
in the Champs Elysees or of a poor fifth
floor little flat at Montmartre or Batig-
nolles-she has always the charm of
feminality. She is always smart always
alert, and has little fluttering, bustling
way with her that is bound to keep
awake your interest in all she does. She
may be sometimes little affected, but
she is never vulgar. On Sundays and
holidays she dresses still little more ele-
gantly than usual, but she never appears
to be in Sunday clothes. The middle
class French woman is ladylike, not only
in her dress, but in her speech. You will
never see her loaded with cheap jewelry,
this great stamp of vulgaIity, and when
she speaks to you you cannot guess
whether she is the wife of a gentleman or
of small tradesman.
1 have often heard French women
called frivolous. But this is the height of
absurdity. If frivolity consists in trying
to remain young and attractive as long as
possible then the French bourgeois is
frivolous. If, again, frivolity consists in
making a home cheerful and gay and
preventing a husband from being alb
sorbed by the cares of business then she
is frivolous. If this woman were frivo-
| for the mother which, even to the lowest
of the low, you find in French children?
How could this be unless she were the
example of all domestic virtues? If a
Frenchman of 40 would hesitate to take
an important step in life without first
consulting his mother, surely it must be
that he recognizes in her a wise guide.
1t would be no faere naivete on my part
to dwell longer on the absurd charge of
| frivolity. Take now the shopkeeping
classes. There you will see the wife the
active partner of her husband. Behold
them both as the commercial traveller
displays his goods on the counter. She is
not mere housekeeper, with or without
wages; she is a partner, not merely a
sleeping partner. This not only enables
her, if she happens to become widow,
to carry on business without her hus-
band, but to be independent and bring up
her children. She has not. to obtain her
living on her husband S death, to become
working housekeeper or nurse; she is
the mistress of her own house as before,
and now the lead of the firm.
You cannot obtain perfect notion of
French industry unless you pay visit to
our peasantry. I must say that now the
woman ceases to be attractive. She does
not even attempt to look SO. Sunburnt,
hale and hearty, behold her, dear English
tourist, that is the fortune of France. She
does not wear fringes on her forehead, I
will admit; she does not wear founces
on a second hand skirt, or hat with
flowers and feathers, and she totally ig-
nores one franc diamonds. She has a
coarse serge gown on and simple snowy
cap. She is clean and tidy and the per-
sonifcation of industry. / do not doubt.
however, that, thanks to the blessings of
gratuitous and compulsory education, tho
| time will soon come when she will want
to initiate the ladies of the town in her
habits and dress, and that her sons will
despise the dear land where they were
born and will all want to be clerks and
swagger in town with high stand up col
lars, tight trousers and sticks. Thank
goodness, this spectacle is not yet to be
seen in France.
This good, hard working, thrifty wom-
an is the backbone of the country. The
amount of work she can get through is
simply prodigious. You will always see
her busy, either working in her field,
selling the products of her little farm in
the marketplace of the nearest town or
engaged about her little household. She
is not attractive, but she is the picture of
health and contentment Shares or bonds
may go up or down without disturbing
her peace; she holds none. She trusts
her savings to nobody. Bankers, she
thinks, company directors and stock
brokers may be very respectable persons,
but when the old stocking is swollen with
| five franc pieces she rounds off her little
family domain and buys another field,
something she is quite sure to find in its
place when she wakes up in the morn
| ing.
Let me give you an example of her
! frugality, and allow me to take it from a
personal recollection. My mother has a
housemaid who has been with her twenty
five years. Not long ago, while in France,
took aside this old servant 81 know
how devoted you have been to my
mother" I said to her. 'sYou are not
strong, and | dare say you will not wish
to go into service again, but make your
self easy about this. If anything should
happen to my mother, shall see that
you are comfortable for the rest of your
life. But I said, inquiringly. 81 have
no doubt you have something of your
own by this timer Imagine my sur
prise when heard her tell me she had
saved over 10000 francs (about $4,000,
all well invested, including one share in
the Suez Canal company Max O'Rell in
Philadelphia Press.